Burgers for McKinney

McKinney & Silver is hip to sell square. Square hamburgers, that is. Following a two-month review conducted by Atlanta consultancy Wanamaker, McKinney succeeds Ogil-vy & Mather here as lead agency for Krystal Res-taurants. The Raleigh, N.C., shop topped two Atlanta agencies, Ames Scullin O’Haire and Austin Kelley Advertising, for the chain’s $15 million account. “[McKinney] showed they know us, they know our customers and our concept,” said Gordon Davenport, vice president of marketing and development for the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based company. He said McKinney was the only one that offered “the full package.” McKinney president and chief executive officer Don Maurer, a native New Yorker, said he was at first unfamiliar with Krystal– which has nearly 300 restaurants in 10 Southeast states–but soon learned about its hard-core clientele. “We knew we needed an idea that could capture [Krystal’s] loyal following and bring in new people,” said Maurer. “We did that, and blew it out in every form of communication–broadcast, billboards, online, p-o-p. The idea came early, but nothing else we came up with compared with [it].” Neither Maurer nor Davenport would say the pitch concept will be used in the next campaign, breaking in late summer or early fall. “They’ve won an assignment, that’s one type of relationship,” Davenport said. “We need to get aligned and understand each other at the next level . . . What they’ve done looks very promising, but we both want to make sure it’s right before it goes on the air.”